1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a parts-management system, a method of managing parts and a parts-management system for managing parts used for an image forming apparatus such as a copying machine, a printer and a facsimile machine and other various apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
The above-mentioned apparatus employs various parts each having different durability, and the life of these parts is managed by a controller such as a CPU mounted in the apparatus.
Conventionally, however, when a life of an apparatus as a whole terminates or a new apparatus is introduced in place of an old apparatus, the old apparatus is usually discarded as a whole even if it includes reusable parts.
On the other hand, such a reusable part is sometimes reused. However, in cases where such a part is reused in a plurality of apparatuses, it is very difficult to effectively make full use of such a part until its life terminates because no management system for continuously managing the history of such a part was available. This cannot give a complete satisfaction to a recent requirement for making full use of resources.